Advice regarding first PC build for Blender

Hi all!

I’m in the process of getting a PC built. I’ve been trawling the forums and Youtube and have come to deciding between 2 builds (attached).

Any advice would be helpful! I’d say my usage would be 50% Premiere Pro, 25% Touchdesigner and 25% Blender. When it comes to Blender, I mostly use it to create content for VJ shows or music videos. I’m trying to strike a balance between smoother real-time performance and improved render/export times.

I’ve been in the Mac world for more than 10 years - so I’m finally making the jump.

Keep in mind, I live in Vietnam, so some components are hard to come by or severely over-priced.

Thanks in advance!

BUILD OPTIONS (1 & 2)

Having a quick look over the two lists and assuming you can mix and match or change some parts out I have the following thoughts:

  1. The Gigabyte P750GM PSU should be avoided at all costs, they tend to EXPLODE.

  2. If you can get a 27" monitor with a 1440p resolution which is still IPS and an OK screen I’d get that. 24" is a bit small now days while 1440p on that small a monitor can make text, etc really small.

  3. The RTX 3060 would be a much much better option then the 3050

  4. One of the builds lists a Samsung 980 M.2 drive, great drive, but likely far from cheap and frankly mostly overkill. Yes it will be really fast, but from a everyday usage point of view, just a normal SATA SSD will do the job. You will notice running out of space long before a couple extra seconds loading a file really matters.

  5. Outside of maybe a AMD 5900x and matching motherboard, the 11700 or K version should be just fine. Can go with whatever is cheapest really.

In many ways, between those 2 build options, I’d just want to mix and match between the two, which would come up with a very good and balanced PC for what you want to do. As they currently stand both go a bit wrong in one direction or another.

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I don’t immediately see: "How much RAM?" In my experience this is the single most important factor – even above CPU characteristics. I’d put at least 32GB into a computer today. You need to be as sure as possible that the system will never resort to “virtual memory” during operation.

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Both builds have 32GB RAM. I’m actually thinking of increasing this to 64GB for my Touchdesigner and Premiere work. Thanks for the tip!

Thanks, this is really helpful! I think I’m actually to end up going with an i7-12700 for my Premiere work.

I’ve come to a more final build - if you have some time I’d love for you to look over it and let me know what you think:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DmWNzf

The only component missing from the above list is the monitor (which wasn’t listed) - it’s an MSI PRO MP271QP - 27 Inch WQHD IPS / 60Hz / 5ms / Speaker

If you have some time I’d love to hear your opinion on my modified build:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DmWNzf

The only component missing from the above list is the monitor (which wasn’t listed) - it’s an MSI PRO MP271QP - 27 Inch WQHD IPS / 60Hz / 5ms / Speaker

Well, couple of things. You’ve selected a B660 based motherboard, which while it supports memory overclocking, it doesn’t work with CPU overclocking.

As such, the 12600K, which is an unlocked CPU for overclocking is a little bit of a waste.

So 2 options, update the motherboard or down-grade the CPU to the 12600.

The only other thing I’m not all that pleased about is the fairly low end Corsair CV PSU. I’d much rather their more mid range RMx PSU’s.

The Samsung 980 SSD is fairly high end, if you can get the 970 EVO Plus cheaper or better yet same price but double the storage, then I’d do that.

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I think I’m actually going to change my storage to a 970 EVO Plus (1tb), with an additional PCIe 4.0 SSD (500GB)

As for the CPU/mobo - I’ll see how much cheaper the 12600 is, or even if it’s stocked (I live in Vietnam so local stock is limited and generally over-priced). Not familiar at all with overclocking so downgrading the CPU seems like a better option for me.

Thanks for the tips!

@thetony20! You have given should very useful instructions. I have forwarded these instructions to my friend who is making his first custom PC.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The prices listed are not what I will be paying. I just used the PCpartpicker site as an easy way to organise my build for others to look at.

I live in Vietnam where parts can be hard to come by, or generally overpriced, so I am limited to what’s available locally. The 3070 I’m buying here is equivalent to USD$732 (https://tandoanh.vn/evga-geforce-rtx-3070-xc3-ultra-gaming-8gb-gddr6-lhr/), compared to the 3090 which is available locally at around USD$1935…

Depending on where one is, prices can be rather different. In general I’d expect any local price for the 3090 to be way way more then a 3070.

I would really advise against that, going far extreme from one end to the other usually ends up in issues or disappointment at some stage. For any type of 3D/content creation I’d say 32GB RAM is a good starting place and then depending on what exactly one is doing, consider 64GB. I also wouldn’t got with such a fairly low end CPU with only 4 cores, that’s just cutting things back way to far.

At the same time, I also wouldn’t then pump so much money into the 3090. There is only one reason to get a 3090 and that’s if you know you need the 24GB VRAM for rendering. If you do, then chances are its a business and the cost is justifiable. Otherwise, you can get the 3080 12GB version, which in most places will be a good 30%+ cheaper then a 3090 and render within 5-10% as fast as it.

Always a good option if one can manage it. I always have multiple drives in my system and usually arrange it as best I can so that if I’m more likely to write to one drive while reading from another.

Happy I could be of some extra help.

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